Medical apparatus, such as dialysis machines, must be disinfected or brought into as sterile a condition as possible at regular intervals.
This shall be illustrated by taking a dialysis machine as an example:
The blood of a patient flows through an extracorporeal blood circulation for purification by a dialysis machine, in which the necessary purification steps are carried out.
Because the dialysate comes into indirect contact with the blood through the dialysis membrane, the dialysis circulation must be kept as sterile as possible. Any toxins that may be present could otherwise get into the patient's blood through the membrane.
The active substance most frequently used for the disinfection of dialysis machines worldwide is NaOCl (bleach). But this highly effective disinfecting and bleaching agent causes considerable environmental pollution. In this connection, mention should be made of the sewage problems. On the other hand, NaOCl has the advantages of being easy to handle and producing effective purification/disinfection. Moreover, in many countries NaOCl is often the only available disinfecting agent and, in addition, it is relatively reasonable in cost.